Fandom

Fandom (a portmanteau of fan + suffix -dom), as used here, refers to the large fanbase of the Len'en Project, its culture, and its fanon. Fanon (blend of fan + canon) means, in the broadest sense, the unofficial content related to an official product, but in its most specific sense, means any unofficial content that's believed to be canon by fans. A substantial fanbase for the Len'en Project started in the Eastern and Western worlds during the time Evanescent Existence and Earthen Miraculous Sword were released thanks to the Internet and Touhou influence.

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Since the Len'en Project is only a recent creation and the fact that it is based on the Touhou Project, there is thus far a small fanbase in Japan. On a general basis, fans of Len'en are very likely to also be fans of Touhou, but compared to Touhou, it isn't as well-known. Since the games are for free download thanks to the Internet and high relation to Touhou however, a fanbase is growing in the Western world, namely the Americas, Australia and Europe. Small amount of interpretations affect the story and characters since JynX, like ZUN, creates a broad narrative and lack of detail regarding some aspects of the series, notably ambiguous genders. Some of these more popular interpretations take the form of memes. In some cases, these memes are more notable than JynX's official content, so opinions vary on them within the fandom. Fans do make note however that the gameplay on the Len'en games are much harder than Touhou, having faster gameplay and more bullets on the screen in a fashion that resembles the Seihou Project, with higher difficulties in Len'en generally regarded to be harder than Seihou.

There is yet to be a notable amount of doujin (fan created comic books, games, music, manga, etc.) to hit popularity on the Len'en Project, even though Len'en itself is a doujin series. However, there is some derivative works such as fanart on websites such as pixiv and DeviantArt. Even though if content from Len'en were to be included with Touhou content, it'll be classed as a cross-over despite Len'en being based on Touhou. As such, Len'en is sometimes mistreated as a Touhou fangame series when it's actually not.

Some fan activities can be responsible for adding original attributes JynX may not have intended. On a common basis, anything made without formal approval from JynX is not canonical. This also applies to an author's speculation on official work. However, some have become popular amongst fans JynX perceived in their work. A famous example is that all characters have an ambiguous gender, but they are usually referred to as female, but some choose to keep to "he or she". JynX has yet to make formal, strict rules regarding Len'en on how people can distribute their work in the doujin market.

Despite the existence of official works, authors of derivative works are indeed unlimited to what they use in their creations. Consequently, they're free to enter into the narrative of their own characters, produce cross-overs with other series, and so on. However, these ideas are rarely spread to other works, without going beyond the specific derivative work. A particular problem is that if some people aren't familiar with the official works, then they may perceive widespread unofficial elements as part of the canon.

While they aren't developed nearly to the standards of a story-based game, characters for the Len'en Project can be said to be one of the major reasons why Len'en is becoming popular. Many fans love them, and even obscure stagebosses who only appear once have some kind of fanbase. Various image dumping sites such as Pixiv and deviantArt are having an increasing amount of Len'en illustrations of characters, being common places for Internet users to seek such illustrations. Despite each character having an ambiguous gender, they're usually referred to as female, or on some cases "he or she".